A reader asks: Why is Linux still not as user friendly as the two other main OSes with all the people developing for Linux? Is it because it is mainly developed by geeks?
My initial feeling when reading this question was that it was kind of a throwaway, kind of a slam in disguise as a genuine question. But the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I felt. There truly are a large amount of resources being dedicated to the development of Linux and its operating system halo (DEs, drivers, apps, etc). Some of these resources are from large companies (IBM, Red Hat, Novell). Why isn't Linux more user-friendly? Is this an inherent limitation with open source software?

In KDE there is a GUI for adding a Samba user, except that it doesn't work - you go through the motions but no user is added. The user has to be added at the command line (easy once you know how).

This acknowledged bug has been present for years, is not considered important by the developers (even though it would be simple to fix) and seems unlikely to be fixed in the near future.

For people who expect things to work and have to exist in a heterogeneous OS environment this is a complete showstopper. It is hard to believe that this bug is given no priority and indicative of the non-seriousness of the developers in producing a desktop environment.

As a corollary, why should a new user not be automatically added as a Samba user (or at least a dialog asking whether to)? OSX does.

No, no, no. There is far too much of this sort of thing in the Linux environment and until attitudes change it will never be a suitable system for the masses.

In KDE there is a GUI for adding a Samba user, except that it doesn't work - you go through the motions but no user is added. The user has to be added at the command line (easy once you know how).

I use GNOME so I have never run into that problem. It is something that should be fixed but it isn't a Linux problem, it's a KDE problem.

There is far too much of this sort of thing in the Linux environment and until attitudes change it will never be a suitable system for the masses.

Your example has nothing to do with the "Linux" environment and everything to do with the KDE environment. That bug is probably present on every system that KDE runs on. GNOME doesn't suffer from this bug and is pretty much the default desktop nowadays anyway. That doesn't make it any less of a problem on KDE desktops but it cannot be considered a show-stopper when KDE isn't a necessary component of the Linux desktop.